Mendoza Day 6 - 3 Bodegas & a Lunch

We had appointments at 3 other Bodegas, today -- Achaval Ferrer and VistAlba for a tour and tasting and then a lunch / wine pairing at Ruca Malen. All of these wineries are located in the Cuyo de Lujan region, just south of Mendoza city.

Achaval Ferrer is a small bodega owned by one of the most known winemakers in Argentina.

more beautiful Andes backdropped views.

The tour is up close and personal, as we were out in the tank room while the workers were working. Here they're separating the skins from the juice after some time fermenting.

We even got to taste some of the "wine in process", grape juice that had been fermenting for approx 2 weeks. It tasted better than we all expected.

 

The six of us on the tour all tasted from a communal glass, and then much to our surprise, the guide dumped the remaining wine back into another tub--I guess the fermentation process kills all the germs?

Sutton & Hudson really enjoyed learning about how wine is made.

 

This glass had been fermenting for almost 6 weeks--and it didn't taste too bad, either. Had much more sediment.

 

This was our favorite wine here, Quimera - a blend that we were glad to see is exported to the US. Most of their wine is exported. They make more wine than they can drink in Argentina.

Hudson loves to climb anything, especially trees.

This bodega is owned by another famous Argentine winemaker - Carlos Pulenta from the well known Pulenta family. This was a very different style of making wine than the others. All were different, of course, but this one was interesting how particular they were. We couldn't enter the barrel room, because the slightest change in humidity or room temp might disturb the process. There was a lot of protection of the process. Funny for us as we just left a winery where they dumped some wine that had been tasted by six people back into a tub of wine different from which it came. Fun to see all the different techniques.

underground tasting room also showing the soil section. They believe that the more you stress the plant, the better the fruit. The are many different soil types in Mendoza. This was a very rocky soil that forced the roots to grow very deep for water.

Argentina famous Malbec

the kids were very excited to try the grapes.

 

 We had a delicious 5-course lunch with some great wine here. Our favorite was the last wine - another blend. I'll find the name and post it later. We must've enjoyed the food so much that we forgot to take pictures of it.